What to do after Heroes ?

Not really sure how to react to the ending? Having spent the first twenty-five minutes of episode one thinking 'this is drivel - why are we watching this?' the Sinar family became hooked on Heroes and the last twenty-one weeks have been a roller-coaster ride of twists and turns!

Apparently this was a series that captured the imagination across the world! Yet the rest of the family have been untouched by it, and nobody I talk to knows what it's all about.

It seems to me that Web 2.0 is a bit like that. Tune in and you soon find thousands of examples of innovative practice, and yet a good part of the population don't get it at all or don't know it exists.

And that really applies to knowing God just as well.

Now I've just discovered that the next series has already finished in the US - oops I nearly just read the ending ...

Heroes Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_(TV_series)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/heroes/

http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/

Second Life and learning to fly

Well I've tried but I haven't got a licence! I'm not sure it was a good idea trying to give myself a blonde pony tail when I'd chosen the dark hippy type and now I'm stuck with a frizzy black beard and a yellow pony tail stuck on the back.

I''m not too hot on the controls either (any tips you can give me on how I get the little chap to sit down on the benches provided and not try to walk all over them - this would be appreciated.) I seem to alternate between hovering in mid-air and swimming underwater - moving an avatar is worse than learning to drive a tank! Not that I've ever driven a tank.

I did have flying lessons once - quite enjoyed this after the first half hour given over to the rudiments of flight. I was getting to grips with trimming out and quite used to inspecting all the little rivets before climbing in, I had even learnt to land and steer with my feet, but then the dream put paid to it all!

Well, when I'd dreamt that I'd had to land halfway up Blackpool Tower after mislaying a pair of wings, managed it quite well but been censured by the passengers for making them climb down seventy four flights of stairs, the confidence just went and on my next lesson I couldn't get the trim wheel right at all!

Looking back, I think I handled the aviation better than controlling the avatar!

Top Hats and Spats

Do the two have to go together?

I just realised I've never worn spats!

Does anyone still wear them as a regular item of clothing?

In Fusion?

Well I had forgotten how many people in Britain enjoy queueing at theme parks and especially how nice it is joining a queue in Blackpool Pleasure Beach!

Me, James, the best man, a Norwegian plumber and the stag boy himself, set foot in various parts of the PB early on Saturday morning and immediately joined a queue for that most institutional of white knuckle rides, the Grand National. It's not the big dips that get you, it's the very deceptive little ones near the end when you're sure you're going to smack your head on the bridge!

We lost our Norwegian friend from Wales after lunch in the aptly named Star (you need style to break a plastic fork on fish and chips!) so four of us chased steeples and were revolutionised by Irn bru before James, SB and his dad indulged in 13 holes of golf while BM Stu took some air.

The Space Invader 2 was opened by Doctor Who on the same day as Matthew was born, coincidentally, and then again according to one of the signs, exactly five years later, again by Doctor Who! Was he engaging in some clever kind of time travel and is that why it's called Space Invader 2? The queue started outside the log flume ride and half an hour later we were barcoding ourselves in - only to realise that the queue proceeded for another half hour inside up a series of inclined ramps and steps until we were faced with a sign saying '60 seconds to launch' and ten minutes later by another one saying 'thirty seconds to launch' - proving that Doctor Who was not the only one to indulge in a bit of time travel here!

But the best queue of all was the one for In Fusion (not good for Dads, I'll take some pictures, I thought, but then remembered I'd got a new card in the camera with over 1Gb so decided to take some video instead.) That queue disappeared out of site and assuming that we'd spot him on the way up because of the red hoody, waited till he came in site and took loads of video footage from the prime vantage point the two of us had taken up. Then we waited for him and the NP and BM to reappear - waited and waited - and in the end went to look for them in the shop.

'Where r u?' I ttxtd him.

'About to go on - in the front' came the rply.

Quickly James and I hared back to find our prime position still free and set cameras to repeat the exercise - only they're a little shorter than the first lot as I was worried the batteries were giving out.

Pictures are here and on facebook, the video clips on Daily Motion.

Regional Government?

I'm all in favour of Independence for Scotland, actually. And Wales. In fact I think the Government should scrap plans for regional assemblies in England (I think they have, really) and instead start a campaign to revert to the ancient kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Sussex and Kent. Wessex should probably not include Cornwall - Kernow of course is a separate country with its own Celtic language!

I'm not so sure of the impact economically, politically or legislatively but it might mean we would have a chance again in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Why doesn't the Isle of Man enter?

Scenes round Edinburgh

Had a few days in the Scottish capital before Easter. I thought you might like to see some of the pictures taken while we were there.

Edinburgh Castle
The Camera Obscura
View over the city and river Forth
Greyfriars Bobby!
...couldn't leave without a view of the National Library


Edinburgh is a warm place to visit - even when it's cold! The people of Scotland make it very warm. (and the whiskey)

... so where was I at Noon today after all?

Well, in the end I was sitting in a meeting discussing fire risk assessment training and SMS messaging (what does the last S stand for?) and wondering when the lunch would arrive, before or after my Springboard presentation (which in the end lasted about 2 minutes). No I didn't do it from a springboard, it's hard to explain...

I was hoping to tell you that I'd been out for a walk in Avenham park or down by the Ribble following the track of the ancient tramway that originally connected the Lancaster Canal to the Leeds & Liverpool, by means of a rickety bridge over the river... centuries before the fantastic Millenium link that now locks down to the Ribble Estuary and back up the River Douglas to the L&L ... and regale you with the state of the weather and the daffodils now blooming all along the verges of Tom Benson way (although I would have been nowhere near there at noon anyway, it's just the thoughts of the Ribble link and the Lancaster canal which the road goes over.

Or about how dangerous it is walking down Fishergate or any other city centre street, not from traffic but from the number of other people intent on keeping on track and ready to barge you against the litter bins or pillar boxes or squash you against the wall or just run over you with their pram wheels or smash your knees with their bags of shopping.

Or how the prices of CDs don't seem to have been adjusted in any way to truly reflect the growing competition from downloads, in fact just going the other way (unless you really want the greatest hits bargains or a re-release of Tunes from the Edinburgh Tattoo - which I really enjoyed)

But there I was with my laptop on the desk wondering when the battery was going to run out (it didn't) making plans for the future of the library service, and my lunch.

Felts and Popups

So the wind blew again and the world came to a standstill.

It was the brakes on the car I had to have done this time, and so I got the train to work in the morning. The wind blew the roof off the station so I had to get a coach home, it took two hours. Lovely!

Well it was a pleasant green coach so that's not bad.

I arrived home only to find that the wind had blown the felt roof off the bay window of our house. This is at the back of the house and years ago I built a section of the model railway into a window seat under the bay, this is normally covered with an upholstered seat. It is now completely ruined by the rain - you see we don't normally see this felt roof and it was only when our nice neighbours from round the back of the house came round to tell us that we knew something was wrong - 24 hours after the wind blew it off! Moral - always check your back room as well as the front room!

Hopefully I'll be able to post this to my blog. We went wireless last month and new security software on the PC and XP and all that and even though I've allowed popups at two levels of security there is obviously another layer still blocking the preview popups !!! Grrr!!!!